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Copyright, 1897, by 
Grace Duffie Boylan. 



\ 



IKE MORGAN. 
EVERETT E. LOWRY, 
J. T. McCUTCHEON, 
W. SCHMEDTGEN, 
HARRY O. LANDERS, 
JULES M. GASPARD, 
F. HOLME, 
CLYDE J. NEWMAN, 
HAROLD R. HEATON. 

-^ 

Cover by W. W. DENSLOW. 



v.yfl 







CONTENTS. 



1 



Mr. Brown _ _ _ 

Heimgang - > - 

Terry's Repentance 

When the Moon was Bad 

Sunrise on Mt. Shasta 

Lullaby - - - - 

From the Mine - - - 

When the Band Played 

Old Folks Hear the City Choir - 

If It Is True - - - 

The Prison Gardener 

To-morrow - - _ 

Curve of Country Road 

Ishmael - - - 

If Tam O'Shanter 'd Had a Wheel 

Tempest _ _ - 

The Quest of Gudrun 

Sonnet - - - - 



64 

66 

67 

73 

74 

75 

76 

78 

83 

86 

87 

93 

94 

95 

103 

104 

105 

112 



nerry Q. Landers. 






TO MY MOTHER. 



THE OLD HOUSE. 

Cold and cheerless, bare and bleak, 
The old house fronts the shabby street; 
And the dull windows eastward gaze, 
As their cobwebbed brows they raise, 
Just as tho' they looked to see 
What had become of you and me, 
And all the other children. 

The garden at the side, — you know, 
Where mother's flowers used to grow, — 
Has run as wild as we'd have grown 
If we had not her training known, 
The vines she bent still twine each tree ; 
As cling her prayers to you and me. 
And all her other children. 

Over the eaves, wrinkled and bare, 
The gray moss floats like tangled hair. 
If we had heard these echoes flung 
Down the long halls, when we were young, 
We'd never scurried off to bed — 
You and I — thro' the gloom o'erhead, 
With all the other children. 

7 



On our wide orbs the eyes of night 
Gazed softly, with mesmeric light ; 
When mother bent above our bed 
The silver moonlight touched her head, 
And in my dreams her face I'd see, 
Madonna-like, shine over me — 
Shine over all her children. 

The dust drifts o'er the garret floor, 
The little feet tread there no more ; 
But o'er the stage, still standing there, 
The Muse first stalked with tragic air, 
And whispered low to you and me, 
Of golden days that were to be 
For us, and all the children. 

Good-bye, old house! Thy tattered cloak 
Is fringed with moss and gray with smoke 
Within thy walls we used to see 
A gaunt old wolf named Poverty; 
Yet from thy rafters' dingy bars 
A ladder stretched up to the stars — 
For us, and all the children. 




A NEW WOMAN, 

A new woman lives just over the way; 

But her hands are as soft as the tinted snow 
That falls from the apple trees in May, 

And her lips are as sweet, I know. 

You'd be surprised; -but on suffrage laws 
She has no views, and she doesn't speak; 

And even the Bible's flagrant flaws 
She can stand for another week. 

Yet, 'tis said, at a wave of her little hand 
Her subjects bow with an homage true ; 

And there isn't a right in all the land 
That isn't her guerdon due. 

For down a pathway of woven light, 
That leads to this world from the 
jeweled skies, 
She came last eve, with her brow 
all bright 
With the dews of Paradise. 




AT THE REFUGE OF SAINT SOPHIA. 

J- 

The afternoon shadows crept into the little sewing- 
room of the Refuge of Saint Sophia, and the pale mother 
superior folded her work, smoothing the coarse seams 
with careful hands, and stepped out on the western 
porch. Her glance drifted across the well-filled waving 
fields and rested upon the white road winding across the 
background of green and slipping from sight in the deep 
wooded stretch that joined the hazy purple of the far hori- 
zon. How long the way had been to her torn feet when, 
after days and nights of ceaseless journeying, she reached 
this refuge, nestled in the great Swiss mountains, and 
with a wild and sobbing cry had fallen blind and fainting 
at its door. 

Why, that was fifty years ago — fifty years ! And she 
had prayed so earnestly, it seemed she could not even 
wait the time of asking, to die then. Ah ! she had learned 
to live since that time, and had caught the secret of for- 
getfulness in loving servitude for others. She wondered 
now, a little vaguely, how the world that she had known 
would look to her long sheltered eyes. They heard so 
little in this place, even when nations shook with the 



toppling down of thrones. And it was well. She, mother 

of mercy ! she had heard enough. 

She lifted her hand to shade her eyes and the red 

sunlight shimmered through its transparent flesh quite as 

it did that afternoon in May when at her wedding fete 

she had lifted the ruby wine and cried: 

"Vive la patrie ! Vive le roi !" looking in eyes that 

spoke again to hers. 

But hark! She knew the mutterings long heard 
around the throne had swelled 
into a savage cry, and "the 
faint, long echoing footsteps" 
become a trampling, living sea, 
breaking in ever fiercer waves 
of blood and devastation against 
the eight grim towers of the 
Bastile, under whose shadows all 
the day St. Guillotine counted 
her beads. It was her wedding 

day ! Could they not hush for those' tender hours 

the awful cries and the wild clamor of the blood-drunk 

mob? 

She saw again the garden's leafy shade, the fierce- 




eyed horde that came unbidden guests, the scowling, 
red-capped woman who tore off her bridal-wreath and 
raised a crimsoned knife to strike her down. Afterward, 
through the horror-filled days of hiding and of flight, she 
felt that she had heard the harsh inswinging of the Bas- 
tile doors shutting the love-light on her young husband's 
face forever from her sight. But the pitying friends who 
saved her life that day told her that he had fallen there, 
and then she had gone mad ! Hark ! Was that a tum- 
brel rattling over the pavement? Ah, no; only a peasant's 
cart moving along the quiet country road. The woman 
made the sign across her breast, stilling the tempest 
of her soul. 

It was always shady in the afternoon where the rose- 
vines climbed to the mossy roof and laid their dewy 
blossoms against the gray columns of the wide piazza; and 
the old man sat where the breeze stole over the jasmine 
at the side before it came to touch the thin white locks 
upon his brow, sat there alone with the past, and seeing 
only the scenes that memory painted on the inner curtains 
of his sightless eyes. No one knew who he was or where 
he came fromi beyond the name given in the brief entry 
in the yellow-leaved register. The writing of that was a 



little unsteady, too. Quite unlike the mother's usually 
careful hand. But she had written it the day he came 
with feeble steps along the dusty road, groping his hesi- 
tating way up to the ever-open door. 

"Jean d'Armand," he had answered when asked his 
name, and even the children noticed that her face grew 
whiter as she said: 

"Jean? I did not hear aright. Did you say Jean 
d'Armand?" 

The old man turned his face, tense with the listen- 
ing look the blind have, at her voice and replied: 

"Oui, madame, Jean d'Armand." 

She drew the folds of her veil still closer about her 
face, whispering to herself the stranger's name. 

The days went round, a skein of light and shadow 
wound from the hands of Time, and the stranger seemed 
content. He spoke but seldom to the rest, but lived, 
as the blind must, in a world peopled with memories. 
The earth sounds grew so indistinct and low they 
ceased to jar upon his ear. He heard the music of the 
poplar trees unfurling their green and silver banners, and 
all the air was filled with whisperings of peace, the while 
he waited, a poor pilgrim, at the sunset gates of life. 

13 



The sisters, flitting noiselessly about, spoke gently to 
him as they passed his way, and the little children, v/ith 
wide, shy eyes lifted to his face, vaguely recognized the 
touch of sorrow there and tried to comfort him. 

"Is it because you are so near Heaven that your 
head is touched with snow, Father Jean?" said little 
Marie, whose gaze had wandered from the mountain's 
silver crown to the aged head beside her. 

"No, dear one," he replied; "it is because I am old." 
The child caught the note of pain in his voice and 
questioned with a caressing touch: 

"Does it hurt to be old, monsieur?" 
"Once I would have thought so, dear one," he re- 
plied, "before the world I loved so much had crumbled 
into ashes, but now I have learned to say: 
" T am old and blind, 

Men point at me as smitten by God's frown. 
Afflicted and deserted by my kind, 

Yet I am not cast down. 
I am weak, yet strong; 

I murmur not that I no longer see; 
Poor, old and helpless, I the more belong, 
Father, Supreme, to Thee.' " 
14 



Another listened with the child, as with rapt, un- 
seeing eyes and glorified face the old man continued: 
" '0, Merciful One! 

When men are farthest then art Thou most near; 
When men pass by me and my weakness shun 

Thy chariot I hear.' " 
His voice rose in its triumphant joy, and in the 
shadows of the ivy at his side the black-robed nun stood 
with her thin hands clasped across her breast and yearn- 
ing eyes fixed on his face. 

"Jean!" The cry burst from 
her long-disciplined lips. 

The old man started from 
his seat. "Who calls me?" 
he cried. "Who calls my name 
with the voice I thought drowned 
in the commune's roar?" 

"I called you, Jean, Jean 
d'Armand." And the nun stood 
there before him, straight and 
tall, the sunset glow touching 
her white hair and face with 
almost saintly beauty. 
15 




"I called you — " And the heart-throbs broke in 
waves the simple words: "Now speak my name." 

He struck his hand against his eyes as if to break 
the seal of darkness there, and then cried, it seemed to 
the woman's soul, with a voice like the angels' calling to 
the dead "Arise 1" 

"Ninon, Ninon, my wife!" 

Earth has few moments of such solemn joy; and as 
he told her how the grave had yawned and turned him, 
like the Wandering Jew, away, they heard the angelus from 
the gray, distant tower, and knelt together in the fad- 
ing light. The darkness deepened and the woman's head 
slipped over till it rested on his breast; and when the 
sisters came with loving care to lead her feeble steps 
away to her bare, white cell for the night's rest they 
found that One had been before them and had touched 
the faces of those reunited ones with that still look of 
peace that men have misnamed death. 



i6 




JIM AND JOHN. 

They were schoolmates, Jim and John, 

But Jim never did get on. 

Wasn't lazy, fur's I know, 

But jes' took things kinder slow. 

An' good-natured — well I guess! 

Though he could get riled at less 

Than 'ud make most fellers mad — 
Not to call his temper bad. 
'Twas that flashin' in the pan 
Nat'ral to an Irishman. 
For the rest, a kinder heart 
Never took a brother's part. 

John is diff'rent; alius was. 
He would never stop because 
Others might stand in his way — 
Whether it was work or play. 
Fact, when all is said and done, 
He's looked out for number one. 

Still, I'll give his due to him; 
He was piouser than Jim. 
17 



The one boy that kep' the rule 
'Way back in that old, red school; 
Ne'er played hooky, never tried 
Cheatin' in his sums, or lied. 

Jim 'ud work an afternoon 
Helpin' some poor little coon; 
Miss a day of jolly fun 
Splittin' wood for Widow Dunn. 
But he'd cuss, like all possessed, 
At a boy who'd rob a nest. 

Wasn't, as I must allow, 
Saint or angel then. But now, 
Though a dingy, ragged vest 
Hangs upon his honest breast, 
It is not to hide, I know. 
Wrong to woman, child, or foe. 

P'raps he don't amount to much 
In society, an' such. 
P'raps folks ain't inclined to raise 
Him before their kids fur praise; 
But I know him, and I say 
Better men don't pass this way. 




John, upon the other hand, 

Is a niodel for the land. 

Deacon in the church, with all 

Of the honors that befall 

Them that's lucky in their life — 

Place, 'an wealth, 'an child, 'an wife. 

But for all that, I am sure. 
His own soul is mean and poor. 
No poor brother ever felt 
Comfort from his hand, or help. 
No sad tears by him are dried 
If his purse must be untied. 

So I'd like to take a look 

Into that big record book 

That the angels keep above; 

Find the place where deeds of love 

Are set down, and read within 

The true estimate of Jim! 



19 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN. 
J' 

Say not "good-bye" — the sounds have all regret; 

I cannot loose your hand with such a word. 
Our ways part here, and yet, Love, and yet, 

I cannot leave you till my soul has heard 
The charm to bring me to your side again, 

The dear "auf wiedersehen." 

Say not "adieu" — the word has hidden pain, 
Within its foreign accents sweet and clear. 

That haunts my heart with sad and hopeless strain, 
And pleads with duty just to linger here. 

Smile courage in mine eyes, Love, and then, 
Whisper "auf wiedersehen." 

Say not "farewell" — if thou wouldst have it so; 

The word, like a wan hand, waves us apart. 
I cannot leave, mein liebling, will not go, 

Until you whisper, lying on my heart. 
The golden bridge between the Now and Then, 

The sweet "auf wiedersehen." 



EPH^RUM^S MATRIMONIAL SURPRISES. 

J' 

They were sitting too far back from the lal^e shore 
to see much of the cycling contest, but they did not seem 
to mind that very much, Beyond the crowd of brightly- 
garmented people that stretched like a low and jeweled 
wall in front of them they could catch sight of the lagoon 
hemmed with its band of vivid emerald sward ; and from 
there look far off to where 
the bending heaven 
touched the waters and 
the strong east wind 
snatched snowy clouds 
from the sapphire sky 
and tore them into white 
caps for the waves. 

Occasionally the 
old couple would lift 
their dark faces toward 
the statue of a man 
on horseback, outlined 
against the sky and 
standing silent and im- 




movable between them and their world, but if the sight 
had any significance to them they gave no sign. The 
cold breeze fluttered the shawl on the woman's ample 
shoulders, and she drew it closer as she said: 

"Dar wan't no sich cold fall days w'en we uster 
walk togedder befo' wah times, war dar, Eph'rum?" 

She looked a little curiously into the withered black 
face of the man beside her and continued: 

"Seems like I couldn't hardly b'leeve dat dis is yo'. 
I alius 'member yo' like yo' was w'en I saw yo' las'. 
Lan', how yo' uster rastle; dey couldn't none of 'em 
fro' yo' 1 An' how yo' could stomp the hoedown ! I 
ain't neber fo'got dat ! How long yo' b'en lookin' foh 
me, Eph'rum?" 

She smoothed the faded ribbon at her throat and 
smiled at him with the pathetic coquetry of age. The 
old man coughed apologetically and said with commend- 
able hesitation: 

"W — wall, yo' see, I cain't jes' tell how long I 
mought 'a' be'n lookin' foh yo', honey, ef Tanzy Ann 
hedn't hed sich a lingerin' disp'sition. It war dis way: Wen 
yo' was sol' an' moved up de ribber I was dat 'stracted 
dat de fust t'ing I knowed I v/uz ma'h'd to ole Jim's 



daughtah. Yo' knowed Tanzy, didn't yo' ? Why she war 
de putties' — I mean she war dat pore, liT lame nigger 
ob Jim's. We libed in de cabin whar ole mis' planted 
de honeysuckle vines, an' — oh, dem vines all died!" 

The woman was watching him closely, and the wily 
old man was trying to keep all the remembrances of 
his past happiness out of his voice, and to explain his 
long delay in claiming his bride. He saw that he was 
making some mistakes. 

"Wall, liT Tanzy Ann wasn't neber vehy well," he 
continued, "an' I uster tote her roun' in meh ahms like 
she wuz candy — an' one day she died." 

Eph'rum turned away and gazed out over the waters 
— a redeeming light upon his crafty face. 

"W'en she die?" the woman asked abruptly. 

"She ben dead twenty- two years de sebenth day ob 
July," he replied, with unusual promptness and exact- 
ness as to date. 

His companion snorted contemptuously. 

"An' yo' ben lookin' foh me foh twenty-two years? 
Humph !" 

"W — wall, 1 done sta'ted out to look foh yo'. I 
heerd dat yo' war up no'th, an' I come 'long up to 

23 



Lexington — on meh wey to fin' yo', yo' know. An' ef 
I didn't come 'cross Lizy Stow. Yo' 'member Lizy ? 
An' de fust ting I Icnowed slie done got ma'h'd to me 
— an' dar I wuz ! So I tought I mo ugh t jes as well 
settle right down dar whar Lizy hed a good bisness in 
de washin' and ihnin' line. Hi ! how I uster camp down 
in de sun, 'side de vine dat kivered de cabin, an' heah 
de music ob de soapsuds bilin' ober on de stove an' de 
rub-dub ob Lizy's knuckles on the washboa'd ! An' I'd fall 
fas* asleep jes de minute I'd heah huh rastlin' roun' foh 
de pail an' gin to look foh me to tote in de rinsh watah." 

The old man fell into a 
meditative silence but the 
woman was visibly impatient. 

"Lizy Stow uster be 
pow'ful humbly," she said. 
"Wen she die ?" 

"Le's see," he began, 
reflectively; "I reckon she's 
ben gone moughty nigh fif- 
teen years, foh Hepsy an' 
me had ben ma'h'd ober 
fourteen years w'en she 
died, las' week." 



24 




The listener arose in her wrath. 

"Yo' ain' gwine tell me dat youse ben ma'h'd since 
Lizy died, is yo' ?" 

He quailed a little under her fierce eyes, but an- 
swered bravely: 

"W — wall, yo' see, it wus jes like dis. Pearly: 
Wen Lizy j'ined huh sistahs in de Lor', I sole de flat 
ihans an' washboa'd and de bushel o' peach-pits we 
owned, an' den I sta'ted out foh to look foh de lubly 
floweh I'd ben a pinin' foh so long — dat wuz yo', honey. 
An' w'en I wuz trabelin' a-huntin' foh yo', who'd I cum 
'cross but Hepsy, an' de fust t'ing I knowed — " 

"De fust t'ing yo' know some udder fool woman '11 
mah'y yo', I s'pose," said his companion, glowering upon 
him in righteous anger, "but I 'tell yo', Mistah Eph'rum 
Har'son, dat woman ain' gwine ter be me !" 

She strode away majestically; but an hour later 
when I passed the place again, they were sitting close 
together and "Eph'rum" was evidently resigning himself 
to another matrimonial surprise. 



AT EVENTIDE. 

Sometimes the day drags heavily along; 

The waves of tumult in the busy street 

Strike on my heart with soulless, ceaseless beat, 

And I can frame no song. 

Then comes the eventide; and in a place 

Upon whose lintel I have written "Home" 
I rest as one love-crowned on a throne, 

Forgetting Sorrow's face. 

A little child, a cuddly, baby thing, 

Close to my breast from smiling dreams awakes. 

Dear God! What balm to ease a heart that aches 
This motherhood doth bring ! 

My eyes grow dim for sorrows — not mine own, 
But for the griefs my sister women bear 
Who have no baby eyes to daunt despair. 

No child-love to atone. 



26 




EVEN IN FAR JAPAN. 

J' 
It was in the time of the cherry bloom, 
A twelfth month past in far Japan, 
When under its over-arching shade 
She came, with a look as sweet and staid 
As the dame's on a paper fan. 

I'd been browsing 'round, as a tourist will, 
Bored half to death, I'll frankly own, 
By the snub-nosed roofs, the paper walls, 
The squat, black gods in their gaudy stalls. 
And the carvings of bronze and stone. 

I cared not a rap for the Buddha calm, 
For one of the idols gray and grim. 
But here was an "object" diff'rent, quite; 
And softly along through shade and light 
She came with her footsteps prim. 

She'd a scarlet wreath in her raven hair; 
Her obi hung in a fetching bow: 
Her feet, in queer, little, fingered hose, 
Fell each as soft as a falling rose, 
And I wondered which way she'd go. 
27 



She paused like a dove that has lost its way, 
Her soft robe stirr'd o'er her gentle breast. 
"Damsel," I cried, "are you straying here, 
With your coolie small and 'rik'sha near. 
While you utter your soul's behest?" 

"I haven't a jinrikisha," she said. 

With cheeks like bloom v/here the sun doth sfrike; 

"But I've come far, and 'tis growing late, 

So please go down to the temple gate 

And wheel along up v/ith my bike." 

It was in the time of the cherry . 

bloom — 
I'm sure of that — and 'twas in japan 
But did I dream ? Did that vision 

speak 
My native slang in the accents 

meek 
Of a dame of the paper fan ? 




OLD **^^.** 
J' 

Every day at just such an hour the old man entered 
the yards and walked slowly up and down annong the 
engines, lingering longest around old "97," the huge, high- 
smoke-stacked locomotive, still on duty, but soon to be 
retired and devoted to a most inglorious end by means 
of a sham collision. 

A few of the blue-jeaned heroes around the depot 
objected more or less vigorously to the presence of 
the stranger, for it is a dangerous place for the nimble 
and quick-eyed, and the old man was half blind and his 
ears were closed to even the shrill whistle of the trains. 
But some of the men remembered that the bent and 
feeble veteran was an old engineer, the oldest on the 
road, and "97" had been for years dearer to him than 
wife, or child, or friend. 

Al Reece had kept his post until five years before, 
carefully concealing from the argus-eyed inspectors the 
fact of his partial blindness and infirmity. He had been 
an engineer for fifty years. It is a matter of history that 
he took the first train over the road; and "97" was his 
second love. The first he had gone over a bridge with, 

29 



after feeling her heartbeats quiver through his own breast 
and feeling her response to his every desire for tv/enty 
years. He carried a scar on his head for a long 
time and the heart wound never entirely healed, although 
the railroad company framed resolutions on what they 
called his heroism and gave him a brand new engine, 
right out of the shops. Al called her the "Jewel," after 
the other one, for he was a young fellow then, not above 
a little romancing; but later the company changed all the 
names to numbers and she became known as the 
"97." 

It's a strange thing how a man gets to love a 
creature of iron and steel. There wasn't an engine along 
the division kept in better shape than "97," New styles 
were adopted, and all the late inventions came in, but 
the "old girl" kept her place, and Al Reece kept her in 
it by his care. 

The old-fashioned brass mountings were as bright 
as the day they were fitted on, and there wasn't a speck 
or a bit of dust about her anywhere. 

But as time passed on the men began to look half 
pityingly at the old engineer and whisper that perhaps 
he would have to be retired before "97" was called in. 



"Why, he can't see a foot in front of him," said 
one of the young fellows, "and it's a mighty risk to let 
a blind man run an engine!" 

The same thought was moving the directors, for 
they could no longer ignore the fact of his condition. 
But those who believe corporations have no souls might 
have learned much if they had witnessed the scene in the 
superintendent's office when old Al Reece was pensioned 
and discharged. 

The news had been broken to him by a man who 
looked at the bowed figure with manly tears and at the 
conclusion of the interview had taken the toil-worn hand, 
that had held the lever for so many years, in his own 
as a son might have done. 

The old engineer lifted his eyes, full of the piteous 
look the blind have, to his face. 

"My trip's about over, anyway," he said, "an' I did 
want to slow up at the terminal on old '97.' But it's 
all right, sir, it's all right. I might have had some acci- 
dent on account of my eyes, an' have carried on the 
folks that wan't ready for the last station. But I don't 
believe I would. I really didn't need to see with her. 



She was eyes for me; and she had too much sense to 
go wrong. 

"There's jest one favor I want to ask, sir: Have 
'em let me through the gates whenever she's in from 
her trips. It'll be a comfort to us both, sir." 

For a long time, the engine, under a strong, young 
hand, kept her regular runs. But she got fractious and 
cranky, and was finally used only in the yards. Old Al 
never missed his visit to her, though he grew feebler all 
the time, and seemed to mourn over her changed and 
neglected appearance. 

One day as he leaned against her dull side, patting 
her and talking of the days they had passed together, a 
young switchman, new in the yards and ignorant, stepped 
up to him. 

'This is the last day for old '97,'" he called into 
the dull ears. "Some showmen have bought her, an' 
they're going to take her down on the siding an' run her 
off the upper bridge. Two trainloads comin' from Newton 
to see it. And there'll be fireworks and a great sight." 

The old man put his hand up to his throat and 
leaned more heavily against the condemned engine. The 
young fellow continued: 



"Better be here. It'll be a big show. She'll have 
steam up an' be sent wild. Starts at 9 if it's pretty 
dark." 

He went whistling away to set the switch for the 8 
o'clock flyer, and the old engineer was left alone. But 
a flush was on the furrowed face, and the dim eyes 
burned with a strange fire. 

"She's ready, now," said the director an hour later 
to a group of trainmen, who had been stoking up the 
old engine, and hanging her sides with gayly covered 
banners. "This is her last trip, let her go 1" 

He threw the throttle wide, and as the engine 
bounded with a mighty leap toward the grs^de's incline 
leaped onto the ground. A great crowd gathered along 
the siding greeted the wild engine with a cheer, which 
speedily turned into a yell of horror; for as the panting 
thing madly rushed toward the bridge they saw a figure 
on the right-hand seat; and as the glow from the furnace 
lighted the cab with its red splendor it shone upon the 
fixed, white face of the old engineer, going to his deat'i 
with "97" 



WHEN PAPA WAS A LITTLE BOY* 

J' 
When papa was a little boy 
He never had a single toy, 
'Cept jes' a knife 'at gran'ma kep' 
To dig up greens and mignonette; 
But my ! he had the mostest fun 
An' mostest larks of anyone. 

He had a stick jes' like a gun, 
An', all himself, he made a drum, 
An' nen he'd march an' march aroun' 
A-makin' such a drefful soun' 
'At gran'ma usto hide her head; 
"I guess the rebs have come !" she said. 

An' nen she'd watch a little while. 
An' nen she'd cry an' nen she'd smile, 
'Cause gran'pa wasn't gran'pa nen, 
He was jes' only "Cap'n Ben." 
An' papa was a soldier's boy 
'At didn't want no common toy. 

He'd weed the flower beds, and nen 
He'd whittle out some giant men, 

34 





An' dip 'em in the bluin' tub 
An' marcli 'em off wif rub-a-dub. 
An' cut more trees 'n Wasliin'ton, 
'Thout gettin' spanked for even one. 

His ma said Santy couldn't come 
'At Trismus, 'an he missed him some, 
But Trismus Eve, when all was dark. 
He made a dreat, big Noah's ark, 
An' lots of animals an' sings 
Wif yellow eyes an' dreat, black wings. 

An' jes' like Santy, packed 'em tight 
In auntie's stockin' in the night. 
My ! she was jes' as glad — as glad, 
'Cause 'at was all the gifts she had. 
An' papa laughed to hear her tell 
'At Santy liked her awful well ! 

I've got a sousand sings, I guess; 
Engines, an' tops, an' printin' press, 
A Shetlan' pony, an' a goat 
'At bumps me down, an' nen a boat. 
But I wish Papa'd saved 'at toy 
He played wif w'en he was a boy. 

35 



THE DOUR NIGHT. 

Lift high the cup) — it is brimming o'er — 

Life's measure is shaken together; 
Though your hand is cold and your heart is sore, 

Drink, friend, to the changeful weather. 
For Hope returns and to-day's frown chill 

Will melt in the smile of another, 
And there's never a night so ill, so ill, 

But comes to an end, my brother. 

Sits Poverty at your hearthstone now, 

Sole guest at your frugal dinner? 
There's many a one far worse, I trow. 

To elbow than that wan sinner. 
Better a dinner of herbs with him 

Than a banquet with Pride as neighbor; 
For he's learned to laugh with his jolly kin. 

The knights of the brush and faber. 

It's a merry world, tho' the lights burn low 
And the embers darken and smoulder; 

Tho' the night creeps down, and the north winds blow, 
And the heart grows sadder and older. 
36 



The skies to-day may be drear and chill, 
But they'll melt into smiles some other, 

And there's never a night too dour and ill 
To meet with the dawn, my brother. 




MOTHER^S BIRTHDAY. 

J' 

Mother tells me in her letter, with an effort to be gay, 

That she has counted seventy winged years! 
But the page is slightly crumpled where her nervous fin- 
gers lay, 

And here and there I see a mark of tears. 
So I'll slip away, to-morrow, to the quiet little place 

With mignonette and sweet briar overgrown; 
And, stealing in, will kiss her on her startled, joy-filled 
face; 

It's mother's birthday, and I'm going home I 

She says: "The boys are coming, and I wish, my baby, 
you 
Could leave your story weaving for a while. 
I'm near the gates of evening, but I think the dusk and 
dew 
Will melt away before your loving smile." 
And then she tells me simply how her pray'rs attend 
my way 
Through all the weary paths I tread alone. 
My heart grows faint with longing, and I turn aside to say: 
It's mother's birthday, and I'm going hom®. 



ROMANCE IN THE IRISH VILLAGE. 

It was time for the dance in one of the Irish vil- 
lages at the World's Fair. The green-stockinged lad 
who played the pipes was beating with his foot the meas- 
ures of the tune as the shock-haired boy with the emerald 
sash and hose leaped on the wooden floor and struck 
the time. Gradually the various groups of people scattered 
about the court gathered into a circle around the plat- 
form; and as the time-honored strains that have quick- 
ened the pulses and bewitched the feet for generations 
sounded clearer and faster, some of the onlookers forgot 
the dignity of their American citizenship, and, with hands 
clapping and bodies swaying, gave vent to their long 
repressed enthusiasm in words half smothered with the 
burr of the old tongue. Across the faces of many a 
substantial man and gracious, dignified woman flitted the 
look that they had once lifted to the lovely skies of 
Ireland, and through the smiles that kindled in their eyes 
shone homesick tears. 

Monom dho Dhia ! Will the Irish feet ever keep 
quiet or the Irish blood run slow ? Not while the harp 
is on the green flag and the heart of Erin feels the 

39 




mingled joy and pathos of its unuttered 
music! The jig dancer, with fine young body 
held erect and light and swift falling feet, 
warmed to the work. The piper leaned 
forward in his chair and beat the plat- 
form with increasing zeal. A smile hung 
round his mouth and touched his eyes. 
Suddenly the crowd parted a little at one 
side and a young girl sprang up and 
joined the dance. She was an Ameri- 
can, a visitor, slim, quiet and demure. 
But the blood of some Celtic ancestor tingled in her 
veins, darkening her eyes and setting a flame in her 
cheeks and the pulse of rhyme in her feet. 

Then 'twas forward an' back, 

An' across an' around, 
Wid her hand on her hip, 

An' her glance on the ground. 

The gossoon before her 

Turned faint wid amaze, 
But he took her soft hand. 

An' he met her soft gaze. 



An' the music swirled on 

As the fire-flies float; 
Like a bird in the air 

Hung each golden winged note. 

Till she tripped the swate time 

Iv bold "Rory O'More," 
Wid his heart for a platform 

Instead of the flure. 

The music stopped and the girl, blushing, breathless 
and bewildered, slipped into the cheering crowd. 

My heart had "been leaping with the melody; and all 
at once I became conscious that an old man among 
the spectators on the other side of the platform was 
gazing at me with the intent look of one trying to grasp 
and place some elusive resemblance. Our eyes met 
many times and there was always in his a doubtful and 
half pathetic questioning. At last he made his way to 
where I stood, and, baring his silver hair, with old world 
grace, said, with a smile of such frank friendliness I 
could find no reason for resentment: 

**Ah, ye're an Irish gurrl, an' ye've no call to be 
ashamed of it." 

41 



"Yes," I replied. "My blood is half and I begin to 
think my heart is all Irish. My father was a north of 
Ireland man." 

"I knew it," he said, with a smile of satisfaction 
lighting his withered face. And then the gallantry of his 
race could no longer be suppressed. "I knew it. Yer 
blue eyes are homesick, an' the smudge underneath thim 
is the mournin' they're wearin' for Ireland. Wor ye born 
in the auld country? No? Oah, Erin is quane iv the 
world!" He drew himself up, erect and soldierlike. 

Poor, sad-eyed queen! The single emerald in your 
iron crown outshines, in such fond eyes, the blazing coro- 
nets of all the earth; and your throne rests on 
the quivering hearts of such devoted sons. 

The old man still lingered by my side, 
but he was silent for a long time. A rem- 
iniscent look settled upon his features, and 
when at last he spoke his voice was strangely 
grave and tender. 

"I've been watchin' ye for a half hour 
past," he said; "watchin' yer Irish eyes and 
smile; an' yer face takes me back across 
the says an' across the years, for it is like 

42 





rone, 



that of a gurrl I used to know when 
I was a young man. * * * i can 
hear her laugh as plain as when it 
rippled over the lakes that war like 
jewels around old Tyrone county in 
thim days." 

"Was that your home?" I lis- 
tened with a new interest, for he had 
named my father's county. 

"Tyrone ? Oah, yes, it war Ty- 
he replied, 

"And what was the name of the girl who looked as 
I look so many years ago?" 

"Molly Mulholland, it war," he replied, a heart throb 
breaking through the quiet tone. "Oah, it war Molly 
Mulholland." 

I turned to him in great surprise. "She was my 
own grandmother!" I cried. But his ears were dulled or 
filled with other voices and he did not seem to sense 
my words. 

Strange things like this may happen every day. But 
my heart still thrills with the wonder of it; for across the 
seas and across the years this old man came to find in 

43 



my face the look of the woman he had loved full sixty 
years ago; the look veiled by the grave from Erin's skies 
for half a century; the look of my grandmother, Molly 
Mulholland. 




A WEATHER PROPHET. 

Ole Unc' Woodchuck jes' look wise 
An' whiff de smoke fum out his eyes. 

"'Fessor," said Br'er Rabbit, den. 
"When'll spring be yere again! 

"Dar's some rumors in de town 
Dat she's been a-sneakin' roun'." 

Ole Unc' Woodchuck jes' look wise 
An' whiff de smoke fum out his eyes. 

"'Fessor," said Br'er Jack, perlite, 
"Folks dey tink yoh knows a sight. 

"Yoh's a wedder prophet, shore, 
Wen yoh shadder's at de doah. 

"Is spring comin'?" Fro de smoke 
Ole Unc' Woodchuck looked and spoke: 

"Yes, I reckon she'll be heah. 
Like she comes 'bout ev'ry yeah." 

"Sakes alive !" Br'er Rabbit said. 
"But Unc' Woodchuck's got a head!" 

45 



NIGHT. 

J' 
In frost 'broidered garments the hushed earth is swaying 

Out in the firmament's cradle of blue; 
And now are the daughters of music essaying 

For the God child, Creation, a slumber song new. 

Each wave to the shore its weird melody's bringing, 
Till ocean's grand orchestra sounds on the beach; 

But tuneless the lute and forgotten the singing, 
For silence is guarding the portals of speech. 

The while we yet toiled in the sun. Night was flinging 

Her veil over Orient gardens so fair; 
And now in its folds a strange fragrance is clinging, 

That lulls into slumber the grim warden, Care. 

And, spellbound, the keeper has left the gate swinging 
That leads to the dream meadow's poppy-fringed way; 

So haste thee, ere rose-armed Aurora, upspringing. 

Calls out from the east the swift cohorts of Day. 



46 



THE CUBAN AMAZON. 

Inez Cari, the black leader of the Cuban Amazons, 
(Feared the naost of the insurgents by the haughty Span- 
ish dons), 
Met the troops at Olayita but a week or so gone by, 
Saw the fierce, unequal battle ere the rebels turned to fly, 
Then, with all the splendid courage of a soul born to be 

free, 
Turned her bosom for the bullets of the Spanish mus- 
ketry. 

She had waited with her women in the rude and hostile 

camp. 
Watching through the quiet bivouac, bearing burdens on 

the tramp. 
Not for her a downy pillow sheltered from the war's 

alarms; 
Not for her the twilight crooning 
as she held her babe in arms. 
But in that last glorious rally, un- 
derneath the smoke-filled sky, 
Inez Cari showed her country how 
a patriot can die ! 

47 




Thus it was: The cruel Weyler sent his troops to settle 

down 
Like a swarm of yellow jackets on the hills about the 

town 
Where the malcontents were hiding; telling them with 

covert sneer 
That the Amazons were holding all the countryside in fear, 
And his own most doughty soldiers, when they ventured 

an attack 
On the gaunt, half-naked rebels, had been fiercely driven 

back. 

"Shoot them down," he said, "or bring them back as cap- 
tives to the town, 

For to tame the fighting furies should be something for 
renown." 

With a laugh the men saluted, and swept down upon the 
field, 

Held by half a thousand women, who would die but 
never yield; 

Half a thousand negro women, who would never wear 
again 

On their bent and bleeding shoulders the degrading yoke 
of Spain. 

48 



Inez Cari called her women, and then, like a vet'ran true, 
Gave commands as clear and steady as if 'twere but for 

review. 
"Come," she said, "a round of bullets wait within each 

rifle's throat; 
Send them singing to the Spaniards, touch a hear/ with 

ev'ry note. 
Look, they come! Now, Viva Cuba!" And with that 

defiant cry 
Stood they waiting in grim patience as the regiment drew 

nigh. 

Silent, till they saw white eyeballs; then their muskets 

leaped in place, 
And their eyes gleamed 'long the barrels straight to 

Spanish .heart or face. 
Ping ! Death's messengers went singing. But the soldiers 

answered well, 
And for ev'ry trooper stricken down a score of women 

fell; 
Till the Spanish closed around them, pouring fast a storm 

of lead, 
And. alone, brave Inez Cari stood at bay among her 

dead. 




"Viva Cuba! Cuba libre!" cried she, smiling in their 

eyes, 
Answering with well-aimed bullets all their fierce and 

mocking cries. 
Straight and tall as a young cypress, with her naked 

bosom dyed 
With the crimson blood fast welling into fuller, richer 

tide; 
Dark the heavens grew above her, but she leaned against 

a tree 
And sent home another bullet in the cause of Cuba free. 

50 



Faint the Spanish cries. Caramba! what a jagged, gaping 

wound ! 
Inez Cari, turning, staggered, and sank down upon the 

ground. 
"Dead, El Capitan!" A soldier ran and bent above her 

head. 
But she raised upon her elbow, where she lay, and shot 

him dead. 
"Viva Cuba! Cuba libre !" cried she with her dying 

breath, 
And the guns of Spain won silence only with the aid of 

Death. 

Thus won Inez Carl glory but a week or so ago. 

On the field of Olayita, where she met the Spanish foe. 

And from 'neath the blessed banner of this blood-bought 

land I raise 
My one harp to strike the measures for a stirring song 

of praise. 
"Viva Cuba! Cuba libre!" Could I lift the cry again. 
Joined by sixty million voices, it would not be raised in 

vain. 



THE BELLE OF THE BLOCK. 

Along about 5 o'clock, when the afternoon sunlight 
was mellowed a little by slowly purpling shadows, and the 
red-cheeked factory girls commenced trooping by on their 
homeward way, we began to watch for her. Perhaps you 
would not have noticed her among the rest, she was so 
tiny — quite hidden, if she walked between their irregular 
phalanxes, or even if one of her sturdy, broad-shouldered 
companions kept on either side of her in their vague, 
unspoken sympathy for her infirmity. Not that she re- 
quired pity! There was not a step among them as light 
as hers and her small head lifted over the cruelly de- 
formed shoulders as brightly and as bravely as though 
she never had heard the whisper "hunchback" as she 
passed along the street. I often lingered at my window 
to see her trip up the steps of the dingy boarding-house 
across the way, and then, if the day were fair, to wait 
until she reappeared, her little red cap removed and her 
face and hands glowing rosily from their brisk, cold bath, 
and noted how she poised and fluttered from one side of 
the iron guarded porch to the other; for I knew that it 
would not be long before the handsome blond giant from 



the corner drug-store would meet the pale young naan 
from the opposite boarding-house at the foot of those 
same stairs — for they were rivals, and the little cripple 
girl was the belle and coquette of the block. 

It was winter when I saw her first; and since the 
day that she raised her eyes and answered my bow and 
smile as she passed, we have been friends. A red carna- 
tion grew in my window and I often pinned a glowing 
blossom on the little gray fur boa at her throat; but mine 
were not the only flowers she wore. I looked across the 
street upon a charming little love drama, but could not, 
from my distance, decide which was the more favored 
lover. The two men seemed equally devoted, but I often 
wondered if either of them would be willing to take "for 
better or worse, through sickness and health" the little 
cripple, who now, as though unconscious of her misfortune, 
received their homage with all the graciousness of a 
woman of the world, without betraying by word or sign 
the slightest preference. I favored the blond at first, 
he was so splendidly big and strong — and she would 
need such sure, untiring arms! But I learned that the 
other was a neighbor, one who had grown up on the 
farm adjoining her little home, and who had followed 

53 



her to the city when she came, with the unspoken pur- 
pose of being near her and shielding her as far as possible 
from every care and danger. 

It was a strange and beautiful thing to note the 
strong, pure love surrounding that helpless little creature, 
and I often pondered upon the end of the story. Some- 
times Jo Field, the country lover, would stop to talk with 
me as he was going home in the twilight, and one night 
his heart overflowed into^ confidence. 

"Have you seen Minnie to-day?" he questioned. "I 
think she is growing pale and thin; that factory is killing 
her! Oh, if she would only let me take her home!" 

His voice trembled on the last word and I could 
see that his dark eyes were full of tears. 

I hesitated a little, but finally said: 

"Do you really wish to make that little one your 
wife?" 

He looked at me very earnestly and his plain face 
grew noble as he answered: 

"It has been my hope since she was a tiny child 
and I was the only one who could carry her about with- 
out hurting her. I am the one to take care of her 
always, and when she will let me I shall take her home." 

54 



Sunday and yesterday I watched for my little friend 
and felt an odd sense of anxiety because I did not see 
her. Sunday is always both holy day and gala day with 
Minnie; for, good little Christian that she is, she trips off 
very early to church, and then, with a bright ribbon in 
her pretty hair and a rose pinned at her throat among 
the laces of her dainty gown, she flits from window to 
porch of the house across the way, or walks in the park 
or along the Lake Shore drive with Jo or the blond 
young giant from the drug-store. 

This week I had not seen her, and when last night 
my bell rang hurriedly I felt a vague sense of alarm and 
expectancy which was not lessened when Jo entered 
the room. His face was whiter than usual and deep 
shadows lay under his eyes. 

"Minnie was hurt by the cable Saturday," he said in 
a dull, monotonous voice. "To-night they are to tell me 
— what — to expect. I thought — may be — I could bear 
it better — if you should go with me. I " 

He turned hastily and left the room. I caught up 
my hat and cape and followed him silently. He walked 
as though in a dream, his hands hanging at his side, his 
eyes staring ahead in hopeless misery. I started to cross 



the street toward her lodgings, but he motioned onward. 

"To the hospital?" I asked, suddenly comprehending. 
He nodded, and we boarded the north-bound car and rode 
far along the brilliantly lighted street, until we reached the 
quieter neighborhood of the place we sought. My escort 
breathed unsteadily and walked with quick, nervous steps 
along the path, shining white in the moonlight, and up to 
the door. 

We followed the low-voiced sister through the long, 
quiet halls and up to a little white-walled room. The man 
was on his knees beside the snowy iron bed in an instant, 
his lips falling softly and reverently upon the thin hand 
outside the counterpane. 

"Minnie," he whispered gently, yet with an intensity 
of love and longing; "Minnie, can you speak to me?" 

The lids fluttered and lifted over the dark eyes and 
her glance rested upon his face. 

"Poor old Joey," she whispered, while something 
like her old arch smile lighted her white and pain-drawn 
face, "you're going — to have — such a ridic'lous wife." 
The words were half lost in the long-drawn sigh of 
perfect contentment. 

56 



"Minnie!" the rapture of a lifetime was condensed 
into the utterance of that one word. She nodded faintly 
and her hand crept up until it rested on his head and 
then down to cover the pain she knew must gather in 
his eyes as she said: 

'♦I can— never walk again— Joey, but," she lifted his 
face to meet the gladness shining in her own, through 
all her tears, "but — I am glad I am going to get well." 

To-morrow they are going to be married. Was there 
ever anything at once so foolish and so beautiful ? 

"She needs me now, much more than ever," he 
explains, "for I could always carry her about in my arms 
without hurting her, and I have loved her since she was 
just — so — high." 



57 




OLD SETTLERS, 

J' 
Old Silas Bangs was reely bent 
On beln' "oldest resident;" 
Got here in eighteen twenty-one — 
But Hodge sed that was when he come. 
An' them two haggled hard an' fast 
Ter find out which hed come here last. 

It looked like foolishness ter me 
Ter see them old chaps disagree. 
Si chawed terbacca by the pound, 
And argyfied, when Hodge was 'round, 
About the time they bridged the creek. 
Or when John Smith was taken sick. 

Hodge said his ox team floundered down 
In a big hole that's now the town. 
But Bangs was sure as he could be 
The hole wan't there till twenty-three; 
An', more'n that, he'd thought it o'er. 
The road wan't built till twenty-four ! 

He'd come along an Injun trail 
An' cut the timber in the swale; 

58 



That him an' Widder Potter's boy 
Laid down to make the corduroy 
Across the swamp, so they could haul 
Their tavern lumber 'fore the fall, 

Hodge said that it wan't no such thing ! 
The log house there was built the spring 
Of eighteen twenty; an' he knowed 
Just all about who made that road! 
Then them old chaps would draw up nigh'r 
An' growl, like dogs, afore the fire. 

I've seen 'em fight like barefoot kids, 
An' clinch an' punch each other's ribs. 
Till Bangs was down, with Hodge on top, 
A-whimperin' fur him ter stop ! 
Hodge was a hundred, an' I guess 
Si, when he died, was suthin' less. 

Old settlers is so kinder source 
They give Si carriages an' hearse. 
But if a man was ever glad 
'Twas Hodge there in the mourners' cab ! 
He didn't make no bones to say 
That he had won out, anyway. 



But arter that he seemed to pine 

An' sort o' falter in the line; 

"I ain't jes' sick," he said, "but now 

Life ain't wuth livin' enny how. 

Since Si's ben gone I've thought, with pain 

He'd got the best of me again ! 

"Wish I'd gone fust; for if I lag 

Si'U hev another chance ter brag; 

An' say he paved the golden street ___ 

Afore it ever tetched my feet. 

But I dunno as I need care — 

There's some ahead of him up there I" 




VINES OF MEMORY. 

J' 
Where a regiment is bivouaced 

In God's quiet acre, there 
Where you see the banners waving 

In the fragrance-laden air, 
I, to-day, beheld a woman, 

Dark with Ethiopia's hue. 
Pray beside the lowly pillows 

Of the sleeping boys in blue. 

Like a bronze and graven sybil, 

Freed from silence for a space, 
Stood she with her soul illuming 

All her dark and furrowed face. 
And a score of race and kindred 

Gathered 'round her as she gave 
Thanks unto the God of freedom 

From her place beside the grave. 

"Lord," she cried, "we bring no garlands 
On this day to wreathe our dead; 

But we stretch our hands, unshackled, 
O'er each low and narrow bed; 

6i 



And the scarlet vines of nnem'ry, 
Twined with immortelles, will be 

Rooted in these graves and growing 
'Round the flag and up to Thee! 

"Thou didst strike our chains asunder 

With thy flaming sword of Right, 
And from 'neath the cloud of bondage 

Led us out into the light. 
Great the price that sealed our ransom 

At the nation's judgment bar, 
When for us and for our children 

Fell the flame-fringed pall of war. 

"These who rest are they whose life-blood 

Filled a fount for us to lave, 
Where a man came forth who entered 

The red flood a shackled slave, 
And with level-lidded glances 

Gazed his master in the face. 
Never more to cringe and tremble 

In his base, degraded place. 

"We, with lifted eyes, are standing 
'Tween the dead and quick to-day; 
62 



The Grand Army of Republic — 
Still our shield and still our stay, 

Keep us ever loyal to them, 
Let the vines of mem'ry be 

Rooted in these graves and growing 
Round the flag and up to Thee!" 




6?i 



MR. BROWN. 

Us children snicker when we hear 

What big folks say of Mr. Brown; 
They think he is the proudest man, 

An' smartest, too, in all the town. 
But if they'd see him here with us 

I bet you they would have to laugh; 
'Cause we're a whole menagerie 

An' he's the awful tall giraffe. 

He has us with him in his room, 

That's filled with books an' funny things. 
Like ladies' heads, cut off an' hung 

Against the wall; an' eagles' wings; 
An' hor'ble idols from a place 

Where heathens worship gods of stone; 
An' skelingtons an' skulls — I guess 

You wouldn't catch us there alone ! 

Then Mr. Brown (when we're up there 

He tells us we can call him "Gus") 

Gets down upon his hands and knees 

An' plays he's a rhinoceros. 
• 64 



My, but we're scared ! We run an' squeal, 
Until he pulls us down, kerchug. 

Into the surgin' River Nile — 
That's what he calls the biggest rug. 

An' he can make the bestest sounds; 

Jes' like a dog or cat; an' crow 
Like banty in the chicken yard; 

Sometime he'll tell me how, I know. 
An' he thinks cake an' jam an' sweets 

Are jes' the things that children need 
To make 'em grow; an' marmalade 

Is very good for us, indeed. 

He hasn't any little boy; 

An' he is awful lonesome, too. 
I 'spect that if we wasn't here 

He wouldn't know jes' what to do. 
I feel so sorry that I pray 

The Lord to send the angels down 
To take my pa and ma away 

So I can live with Mr. Brown. 



65 



^^HEIMGANG/' 

"Heimgang," she said, the quaint old-fashioned speech 
Curving her lips to smiling e'er it ceased. 

Without the Dav/n stretched her pale hand to reach 

The purple clouds and draw them from the East. 

And light began to filter through the room, 

From the low window to the raftered wall. 

Like bars of gold athwart the heavy gloom, 

While silence brooded softly over all. 

And up from bar to bar her glances passed, 

As though it were a ladder to the skies, 

That her pure soul, freed from its bonds at last, 
Trod, round by round, up to its Paradise. 

We knew that she was dying, but her eyes, 

Dimmed with the bitterness of homesick tears. 

Grew bright as with a sudden glad surprise. 

And from her forehead fled the marks of years! 

Then sweet and clear upon the wings of day 

The matin bells their tuneful message cast; 

And, smiling in our eyes, she went her way. 

Glad, as a tired child, for home, at last. 

66 



TERRY^S REPENTANCE, 

Katie flitted cheerily around in her small, bright kit- 
chen, now and then casting a mildly curious glance at 
me. She had taken my dripping umbrella and mackin- 
tosh when I entered, and with her old-time solicitude for 
my comfort, had gone down on her knees to whisk off 
my rubbers and to see for herself whether or not the 
hem of my skirt was forlornly draggled and wet. 

"You do be so careless, you know, mum; an' widout 
me to be lookin' afther you — " 

Katie finished with a look far more eloquent than 
words and expressing her full appreciation of the great 
loss I sustained when she and Terrence suspended hos- 
tilities long enough to be married and go to home-making 
for themselves. 

I did miss her, my loyal-hearted, loving little Irish 
girl ! And I felt a kind of proprietary interest in the tiny 
three-room flat and liked to slip into its shelter when 
November chills penetrated to my heart; for Katie was 
always a tonic to mind and spirit and a sure dispeller of 
blues, and Terry was a handsome, big-hearted fellow, with 
all the virtues of his race and enough of other qualities 

67 




to keep him from being lop-sided. 
His chief accomplishment was re- 
pentance and Katie was his un- 
wearying confessor. 

"The trials I do be havin' wid 
Terry, mum," said Katie, stopping 
in her work and placing one small, 
red hand upon her hip and looking 
at me with the dimple in her cheek held sternly in 
check, "'11 be the death iv me, the saints bless him! 
Only a wake ago me bread war that white an' sweet it ud 
make yer mouth wather; an' knowin' the poor service ye 
have now (with a compassionate sigh), I made bould to 
sind yez a small loaf fur yer brekquest when Terry was 
going by yer dure to his work. Well, pwhat did he do 
but lave it on the cable-car an' go on as continted as 
ye plaze widout it, niver onct givin' it a thought until I 
axed him at night war ye plazed. Ah, poor bye, he was 
that repintant he'd a made yer heart ache !" 

Katie began laying the table in the clean little room 
and flitted back and forth as she talked. 

"Och, the letters and the papers that I give him 
to put in the mail ! Doesn't he carry them around for 

68 



weeks like any gintleman, an' when I do be thinkin' me 
poor ould mother is dead, an' me friends have all for- 
saken me, Terry finds the letters tucked away com- 
fortable an' quiet in his pockets; an' he is so repint- 
int, I hev niver a word of blame fer him. An' no more 
cud you hev, mum, cud ye know the swate ways iv him." 

There was a knock at the kitchen door and a small, 
barefooted boy entered with a pitcher brimming with 
milk. He stumbled awkwardly, and down it fell, with 
a crash, breaking the pitcher and dashing and spattering 
the white fluid over the floor and stove. Katie swooped 
down like a goddess through the milky way, and, instead 
of a scolding, gave the boy a seraphic smile and a huge 
round cooky. 

"You are very forgiving, Katie," I said, looking at 
the grease covered floor. 

"Sure, mum," she said, "it's Terry that kapes me in 
practice !" 

"D'ye moind how the dear b'y swore off the drink 
last month ? To be sure he begun agin the same day, 
but his will is that strong he can stop any toime as aisy 
as that!" And Katie tried to snap two round, plump 
little fingers. 

69 



"But would ye belave it, mum, last night whin he 
had smoked up ivery bit iv terbacca in the house he 
looked at me airnest-like an' sez he, a shakin' his 
han'some head: 'Katie,' sez he, 'I am goin' to stop the 
drink an' the terbacca, too, until we have a hundred 
dollars in the savin's bank. I've been doin' wrong, Katie, 
an' the money I've spint would buy a snug place of 
our own an' dress ye warm an' tidy as a lady, wid a 
foine bunnit for yer pretty head. Oah, I've done wid it!' 
he sez. An' I war that glad I cried for joy!" 

"Do you think he will keep his word, Katie?" I 
asked, a little reluctant to chill her glowing faith with 
even a hint of my doubt. 

"Will he kape it?" she replied, her rosy face rad- 
iant with trustfulness. "Of coorse he'll kape it!" 

"I thought — that is — I remembered," I began apolo- 
getically, "that his memory has failed before now in 
regard to promises that he has made you." 

The little wife was at once on the defensive. 

"Ah, sure, mum," she said, "it isn't his memory at 
all, at all, it's just his forgettery phat makes the trouble ! 
But he'll be true to his word, mum, jist ye moind him. 
Ah, ye should hev seen the two meltin' eyes whin he 

70 




promised me ! Niver a poipe or a 
glass of beer agin till he's saved the 
money, God bless him ! I think I 
hear his stip on the stair this blessed 
minit. Arrah, Teddy dear — Och! bad 
luck till ye, Terrence McGuire I" 

Terry came in unabashed and 
debonair. His bonnie face was 
wreathed with smoke rolling up 
from the cigar held between his strong, white teeth. 
Katie snatched his bright tin dinner pail from his 
hand and ran into the pantry with it. Womanlike, she 
wished to keep from her friend the full measure of his 
faithlessness and on her face was all the shame when he 
called cheerfully: 

"I say, Katie, why did ye run off wid the beer?" 

'♦Your wife has just been telling me how you had 
promised to stop drinking and smoking, Terry. I should 
not be surprised if she felt a little sorrowful and disap- 
pointed in you," I said. 

"Pah, Katie, me darlint," he said, walking over to 
where she sat in a disconsolate little heap, rocking her- 
self mournfully; and smoothing her dark curls with his big. 



tender hand. "Don't ye be afther moindin' a little thing 
like that. Sure I'll quit the drink an' all the minit ye 
ax me to, for good. Dhry yer pretty eyes, thin, darlint, 
an' I'll niver bring sorrow til thim agin." 

He kissed her drooping mouth and her doubtful face 
back into smiling trustfulness. 

"Ah, mum," said Katie with a contented sigh as I 
said good-night, "Terry is so repintint !" And I went 
down the stairs and into the rain-swept street, meditating 
upon the ways of women. 




WHEN THE MOON WAS BAD. 

Muriel, out on the porch alone, 

When the dark came down and the birds grew still. 
Tunefully hunamed in an undertone, 

While the crickets chirped 'neath the windowsill. 

She knew why the twinkling stars were sewn, 
To button the Evening's garments fast, 

For she had seen how the Wind had blown 

And snatched their folds as he rudely passed. 

The shadows came with their footsteps soft; 

And the baby smiled with a new delight, 
As down from the silver orb aloft 

Was stretched a ladder of moonbeams bright. 

"0, mama, look at the pretty moon!" 

She cried as it rose in the spangled sky; 

But a lazy cloud came over, soon, 

And veiled the light while it drifted by. 

And mama saw just a little maid, 

With sad, wet eyes and a quivering chin, 
"Oh, dear!" — she sobbed — "it was bad, I'm 'fraid, 
For — the Lord's — been — an' tooken' it in!" 




It vras early dawn and^the gray mist hung like a 
veil from sky to earth. All at once a ray of light shot 
upward from the east, and touched with silver, brilliant as 
the shield of Hippias, a jutting cloud high up against the 
sky, . A hugfe white shape grew slowly from the gloom, 
til!, iMsrrced by the light that deepened with each bre^h, 
the veil of mist broke into tremulous billows of amethyst, 
that surged around the mountain's base and slowly swept 
up over its emerald sides and snowy crest until it rested, 
like the halo of a saint, above the still, white grandeur of 
its brow. And all the heav/n-touched,. eternal hills, flinging 
their limpid waterfalls liH^ shattered rainbows from high 
Tock to rock, burst in thf- whiteness of their glory into 
Sight— and/it was day^^^ y 




LULLABY. 

Sleep, Beloved, sleep. 

Through the night watch deep. 
He will give His angels charge concerning thee 

Let thy evening prayer 

Loose the chains of care 
And thy slumber calm and peaceful be. 

Sleep, Beloved, sleep, 

For a legion fleet 
Is encamped upon the circling hills of night; 

From this world below 

Swift-winged heralds go 
To the courts of Heaven, where all is light. 

Sleep, Beloved, sleep — 

Ah, thou may'st not weep ! 
See, thy mother holds thee close against her breast! 

Smile in mine eyes, dear, 

Alone, I am here, 
God's own anointed — rest, baby, rest. 



75 



FROM THE MINE. 

D'ye know what it means to work under there, 
Away from the sunshine and outer air — 
The only free gifts even God can give 
To help a man in his struggle to live? 
Where the laugh of a child, the song of a bird, 
The voice of a woman, are never heard; 
Where the only sound is the click, clang, click 
Of your badge of power, the miner's pick? 

The thought of the damp grows a haunting dread, 
Not for ourselves — we were better dead; 
But for children, for wives, who bide above, 
With little to live on but faithful love; 
Smiling through hunger and cold, womanwise, 
And raising new hope when an old hope dies; 
And nerving our arms for a coming day, 
When for honest work there'll be honest pay. 

We burrow and store, like the senseless mole, 
Roofed and inclosed by the glittering coal. 
That changes to gold at touch of your hand — 
Gold for fresh pleasures, new treasures, more land, 

76 



But leaves us blackhanded, and famished, and sick 
Witli naught in our hands but the shovel and pick — . 
Strong keys, which will some day, it may be, unlock 
The door that ne'er yielded to timider knock. 

We look from the dark and we cannot well see 
In the glare of the world how this thing can be, 
That you, who 're but men such as we, can hold 
The balance of pow'r, the will and the gold, 
While we, e'en as if we'd gone to the wall, 
And borne on our ears the brand of your awi 
Must slave in your mines and sullenly turn 
To beg for the wage we honestly earn. 



77 



WHEN THE BAND PLAYED. 

J' 
Up the street marched the village band, resplendent 
in uniforms of blue and gold and followed by the usual 
crowd of boys with steps all lengthened for the martial 

tread. 

"0, Columbia, the gem of the ocean, 
The home of the brave and the free." 

The stirring strains rang on the air and thrilled the 
hearts of old and young, quickening their feet and setting 
them in time. 

Even the old blind man resting by 
the wayside lifted his head and listened 
to the sounds. At first they only touched 
his soul with faint, confused remem- 
brances; then the music seemed to bear 
him back to the familiar scenes he once 
had known. Now he seems to see his 
mother on the vine-clad porch, shading 
her eyes with her hand, and watching 
him as he goes A 
down the long 
hill toward the 





wooded stretch, where deep shadows waver across the 
yellow road, and beyond which he can hear the klingle- 
klangle of the cowbells from the meadow just below 
the brook. 

October stands in those familiar paths; he feels her 
spicy breath full in his face, as the whirling, iris-tinted 
leaves shower around him and roguish squirrels scurry 
daringly along the way. He is a boy again. But hark! 

"0, say, can you see by the dawn's early light, 
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last 
gleaming." 

Ah! now he sees his father with that strange, set 
look upon his face, as he came to him in the twilight of 
a summer day, and said, a little tremulously, but with 
a new thrill in his voice: "My boy, our country needs 
us — are you ready?" 

Ready ? Ah ! was he not ? 

He feels again the thrill and glow of those days of 
preparation, and then! Oh, if he could have known that 
the fair head of the girl he loved would never rest upon 
his breast again; if he could have known that kiss was the 
last her sweet lips would ever give him in this world ! 

79 




His gray head dropped still lower on his 
breast, and over the dust and grime on his fur- 
rowed cheeks rolled the slow tears. The music 
/ continued, but now the air was changed, and 
before the sightless eyeballs of the old man the 
f notes flashed up and down like balls of fire: 

"Yes, we'll rally 'round the flag, boys. 
We'll rally once again, shouting the battle 
cry of freedom." 



Again he feels the shock and long, reverberating 
roar of battle. Robert, his brother, bears the stars and 
stripes. He sees them floating now above the blue, on- 
moving ranks. 

Huzza ! 

On comes the storm of shot and shell; the minies 
scream a death song as they pass, and the dense smoke 
falls like a flame-fringed pall. 

His comrade on the left drops out of sight; he was 
his tent mate and his lifelong friend; no matter. For- 
ward! He leaps aside to dodge a circling shell; a warm 
spray showers on his cheek and hand — the life-blood of 
his comrade on the right; — still, Forward! The lines are 

80 




closing, are together now. A trooper's saber 
cuts his brother down, a gray clad arm 
grasps for the falling flag. There is a shot, 
a rain of blows, a deadly, hate-filled con- 
flict, hand to hand, and then a blinding, 
^2^ torturous flash that hides the flag forever 
ir from his sight — but it is saved ! Yes — 

"Down with the traitor 
And up with the stars !" 

The old man had risen to his feet and stood erect 
and soldier-like until the band passed by. He was poor, 
blind and helpless, but now no longer felt forgotten and 
alone. He settled down again, and soon the dews of 
evening cooled his brow, and slowly, up above, unfurled 
the starry banner of the firmament. 

The boys had broken ranks and hurried to 
their room; and as one young fellow untied the 
tasseled bugle from his arm he raised it to his 
lips to sound tattoo — 

"Blow out your lights, you lazy bummers. 
Blow out your lights and go to bed." 

The well-known strains rang clear, and as 




the old man heard the notes his patient face shone 
with a great content. "The boys are all in camp," he 
murmured, "and soon we'll all be going home — going 
home." 

He laid his hands across his loyal heart and turned 
his face, a patriot's countersign, up toward the watchful 
sentinels of night. And in the morning, when some passer- 
by tried to awaken him, with kindly touch, he found that 
he had answered to the heavenly reveille. 




OLD FOLKS HEAR THE CITY CHOIR. 

J' 
Father an' me are gettin' old; 

We ain't used to the way 
Of goin' to hear the singin', 'stead 

Of preachin', Sabbath Day. 

So when we was with Andrew's folks, 
An' Sunday mornin' come, 

We s'posed we'd hear the word an' jine 
In the sweet hymns they sung. 

An' when we stood in that dim aisle, 
'Neath arched an' fluted stone, 

A ray of light touched father's hair 
An' his worn features shone. 

The organ's grand an' solemn tone 
Jest sounded like a prayer, 

An' when it stopped I seemed to feel 
Wings beatin' through the air. 

"The prodigal," the preacher said, 

"Of sinnin' weary grown, 
Has left the swine an' now has turned 

His face toward his home." 
83 



Then all at once the choir riz. 

It almost made me laugh 
To hear that young soprany shriek: 

"Bring in the fatted calf!" 

"Bring in the fatted calf, the calf," 

Implored the alto low, 
An' all the rest jined in, as if 

They couldn't let it go. 

The tenor's pleadin' touched my heart; 

A critter'd been a stone 
Not to have come a friskin' in 

In answer to that tone. 

Waal, pa, he sot with eyebrows bent, 
Like bushes touched with snow 

A-growin' round some sheeny lake, 
Half hidin' its blue glow. 

But when the bass had started in 

A callin' fur that calf, 
He jist reached fur his handkerchief 

To cover up a laugh. 

84 



"Bring in the fatted, fatted calf," 
Bellow'd the base; an' stars ! 

Our grandson, John, called (half asleep): 
"Grandpa, let down the bars!" 



85 



IF IT IS TRUE. 

If it is true that here and ever3nvhere 
About me is a spirit-peopled air, 

Where loved ones wait 
To guide me, when at last I win the race, 
Up through the fragrant fields of star-hung space 

To heaven's gate; 

If it is true that from all bondage free 

The one who loved me here still loveth me, 

Then tell me, friend: 
Why, like a bar of steel 'tween me and harm, 
Does he not stretch and hold his mighty arm 

And me defend? 

Think you he drank forgetfulness with Death ? 
That he, unmoved, can hear my sobbing breath 

And anguish wild? 
Nay, tell me rather that, in dreamless rest, 
He lieth where no cry can reach his breast 

Of his hurt child. 



86 



THE PRISON GARDENER. 

"I let him putter around among the flowers some," 
said the warden, with a good-humored look toward the 
conservatory, where the old man was at work. "It occu- 
pies his mind and he doesn't do the plants any harm. 
He used to be a gardener, and a good one, too, I take 
it, by the handiness he shows in pruning and transplant- 
ing now. 

"Oh, yes, he's a criminal, sure enough. He's been 
here for fourteen years, but as he has made time 
by good behavior — poor old fellow, he's never been a 
minute's trouble — his term will expire \n a few months. 
He was sentenced for twenty-one 
years." 

I looked through the windows 
of the plant-house and saw the 
convict in his stripes bending over 
a rose, a look of tenderness, such 
as a mother gives a little child, 
upon his face. 

The warden was looking at 
him too. 

87 




"Who would believe that man could be a mur- 
derer?" I said. "I thought the love of flowers was a 
religion strong for the right a-s well as for the beautiful." 

"Yes, and to make the illustration more striking, 
the flowers made him a murderer. He was a harmless, 
sober, industrious citizen, mild in his ways and benevolent, 
as far as his means would allow, to all he came in 
contact with. 

"One day a mischievous boy trampled down a bed 
of violets and roused the old man to perfect fury. He 
warned the lad, alternately begging and threatening him 
with the law, but the boy was impudent and defied him. 

"A white rose of choice variety had just begun to 
blossom, and the little fellow turned his attention to it, 
destroying buds and all. The old man's light hoe 
was leaning against the fence. He snatched it up— and 
in a minute the boy was dying among the trampled 
violets. 

"I think the poor old fellow's mind has given away 
a little. He wanders at times, and sometimes my eyes 
get dim when I look at him, although I've been an officer 
in this state prison for more than twenty years, and am 
pretty well hardened and seasoned to such things." 



I looked from the rugged features of the warden, 
firm of mouth and kind of eye, to the pale face with its 
silver hair and sad, dim eyes, still bending lovingly over 
the " flowers in the conservatory. I am not a woman to 
carry dainties to please the epicurean tastes of burglars, 
or to comfort esthetic murderers with bouquets, but I 
wanted to talk with this man. 

"May I speak to him, or is it against your rules?" 
I asked. 

"Well, we don't encourage much visiting, but you 
can go in and talk to him a little while." 

The man lifted his eyes and looked at me as I 
pushed aside the vines that hung over the arching door 
of the greenhouse and made my way to his side, bowing 
slightly to my greeting. He was visibly embarrassed, and 
a dazed, pitiful expression troubled his eyes. 

"How beautiful that lily is!" I exclaimed. "Can 
you tell me the name of it ?" 

He named the lovely thing, and then half shyly 
pointed out another of the same family, but of different 
coloring, and lost his diffidence in talking of the subject 
so dear to his heart. 

"I suppose there are some fine gardens in Chicago 
89 



now?" he said, with a question in his voice. "Fine gar- 
dens and greenhouses. I heard there was a new one at 
Lincoln Park. The flowers ought to be looking well now; 
an' later — a little later — the chrysanthemums '11 be here. 
I shouldn't wonder if I would see the chrysanthemums, 
for I shall get out of here the last of October, if things 
go well; but do you think" — his voice grew indescribably 
wistful — "do you think there'll be any roses left?" 

I answered him hopefully. 

"Well, mebbe there will, mebbe there will," he replied. 
"I want to see their faces first of all. No one will know 
me but the roses. 

"Oh, yes, I have had them here; but they don't 
thrive in prison air, and I am, some way, hurt to have 
them brought in from outside. Did you say they would 
be blooming in Lincoln Park in October? Ah, thank 
ye, kindly; that quite heartens me ! 

"Fourteen years is a long time, miss, but I guess 
the time goes on about as it does anywhere, though I 
'spose you don't think so. 

•'Have I suffered? Well, not much, except remorse, 

miss; and that is harder than aught else. I killed a little 

lad that pestered me and abused the flowers. God knows 

90 



I didn't mean to, an' I don't even know how it was done. 
But there's no use talkin' of it now. I was willin' to die 
for what I had done, but they put me here instead, an' 
I was shut up between these walls when they had the 
World's Fair!" 

His voice was quivering and broken with excitement, 
and I knew that something moved him mightily. He 
stopped caressing the flowers and leaned against the door 
casing, a deep flush rising to his forehead. 

"Miss, if I could have escaped then I would, if I'd 
died for it; an' I'd walked all the way there, an' I'd found 
that wooded island they tell about, an' the man that kept 
it. Then I'd been willin' to come back!" 

"But there were other things at the Fair besides 
the flowers " 

"Not for me, miss; not for me." 

"And there were interesting people from all over 
the world, princes and statesmen and " 

"Excuse me, but did you ever see a man working 
among his flowers by the name of " 

"Uncle John Thorpe?" 

He had hesitated a little and I spoke the name for the 
sole joy of speaking it. He clasped his hands and leaned 

91 



toward me, a new light of hope and eagerness in his 
eyes, 

"That's the man! That's the man!" he exclaimed, 
"An' when I get out of here I'm goin' straight to him, 
an' I'm goin' to beg him to let a poor old prison bird 
rest in his garden. Do you b'lieve he'll let me work for 
him, at little odd jobs, until he sees the flowers know 
me an' will let me tend 'em?" 

His tones were full of eagerness, and his old hands 
shook tremulously. And I — without leave and yet with- 
out one quiver of uncertainty — answered heartily and 
positively: 

"Yes!" 

And so, when October comes. Uncle John Thorpe, 
and you see an old man, with clean-shaven face and 
close-cut hair, with cheap new garments and an air of 
great haste and pitiful wistfulness and uncertainty coming 
your way, you are to open the gate of your garden and 
let him in. 



ga 



TO-MORROW. 

J' 
To-morrow, I had said through the long night, 
To-morrow, I shall have my heart's delight. 
And all the wrong of yesterday made right. 

And then from out my casement, sweet and clear, 
A bird's first waking notes came to my ear, 
And the fair maid of many hopes drew near. 

One moment from the curtains of the night 
I saw her bent to touch the East with light, 
Then vanish like a phantom from my sight. 

And lo ! at once the shadows, dull and gray, 
The rosy arms of Morning flung away. 
And at my door, all giftless, was To-day. 



93 




fK turn di]co\ihlry roadA'hat slips ^|(m sigh////^ 
^*^m fhreadl the fragrant^mazes of m^ W6do 
("Wbere daffodils ace peeping from fheir Ipoas, 
'Ancl^entfans turn shy glances toward the ^ghtv^o 
hm^ich of field to pass, .a hill's incline^ 
^-^Y » sudden taming in the willow lane; 
fl^A faint tap tkp -against the/window 
And all i irold gainst my^^^rt is 



^<ifNinv^s,f^ 



ISHMAEL, THE EXILE. 

"I am a wanderer; call me 'Ishmael', he said, 
and father, resting his kindly eyes upon the dark, 
unhappy face, held out a welcoming hand and led 
the stranger in. He had found him leaning against J 
a gray column of the wide piazza when he opened 
the door; a tall, weird figure in tattered, dust-cov- 
ered garments, and with bare and bleeding feet. His 
hair, matted and unkempt, hung like a cowl sprinkled 
with ashes over his deep-set, smouldering eyes and half 
concealed the hole, where a bullet might have lain, above 
his brow. He started at the creaking of the hinges and 
straightened his weary form into a dignified posture. 

"Why do you open your door?" he questioned, and 
the rags of his sleeve fluttered with an imperious gesture. 
"I did not knock. I only sought a few moments rest in 
the shade before pressing on. Does the city lie to the 
westward?" 

He spoke with feverish anxiety, and his slight frame 
trembled as with an ague. Father, with a comprehending 
glance into his face, answered gently: 

"The knock was at my breast. I knew that some 

95 




one waited for the cup of cold water that I had to give. 
Come in. Rest and refresh yourself." 

"But the city, the city?" The traveler's eyes were 
wild with delirium. Father, dear heart, in his tender 
piety, misunderstood his meaning. He lifted his eyes to 
the Olympian hills, royal in the purple and gold of sunset, 
and said solemnly: 

"The city is just beyond." 

The man looked at him anxiously, hesitated, passed 
his hand wearily across his forehead and fell fainting upon 
the white sanded floor of the little room; entering, un- 
knowing and unknown, the home where fate had kept a 
place for him, and where he was to remain for many 
years; becoming, as time passed, as much a source of 
affectionate pride as is the possession of some rare vol- 
ume illuminated by a hand that centuries ago returned 
to dust and written in a long-forgotten tongue. We who 
became his friends, his family, knew nothing of his life 
beyond the chapter which began at our own door. In the 
long days of illness which followed his arrival, his piteous 
ravings were in a language unfamiliar to us all, and what 
father learned while watching over him, when life and 
death were struggling for the mastery, he never told. 

96 



"A man's life is his own," he said to us when we 
were curious to learn more of our fireside sharer: "who 
he was before he came to us we have no right to ques- 
tion. We are concerned only in what he is to-day. We 
have decided that: He is our friend." 

We were not always quite satisfied, it is true, but 
that was father's way and we never thought of disputing 
him or choosing another; and now, after many years, I 
know that he was right, quite right. 

"Ishmael", as he insisted on being called, came 
slowly out of the valley of the shadow of death and took 
his place, as naturally as though it had been planned, 
among us. We lived in a sparsely settled district of that 
glorious land "where rolls the Oregon", and school facili- 
ties were not what mother wished for her little flock. 
Father soon discovered that Ishmael' s hand had touched 
the topmost branches of the tree of 
knowledge and was well fitted to 
bend some lower boughs within 
our reach. We also observed that 
his manners, courtly and dignified 
as they were, had lost the imperi- 
ousness which offended us the day 

97 




he stood footsore, wa)nvorn and ragged at our door. He 
had become teacher, guide, philosopher and friend; a per- 
manent member of our household and father's unfailing 
adviser and assistant. Free from all restraint and appre- 
hension, of any kind, he shone in all the beauty of splendid 
manhood, and yet in moments of repose his face would 
move us to tears, so full was it of utter loneliness. 

The Indians of the locality held for him a strong 
interest, which deepened in time into affectionate regard. 
He made a study of their sign language, history and 
traditions, and felt the liveliest sympathy for them in 
their wrongs. One time a tribe from the extreme north- 
western portion of the territory camped in our valley for 
a week or more. There was a subdued excitement evi- 
dent among them, and finally the 
chief, with whom Ishmael had become 
acquainted, told him the reason for it. 
It was an impressive sight to 
if see those two dark, stately figures 
standing face to face; and it must 
have been some hidden chord of 
1^ kindred sorrow that drew them thus 
together. 




The chief said that a number of his braves had 
been for some time along the northern waters of the 
Columbia, and had there discovered a most wonderful 
mirage which they had named the "Silent City." He 
declared that they had been able to distinguish streets, 
spires and buildings with startling distinctness and feared 
that a mighty city had risen in a night upon their own 
lands, and that they should return but to repeat the ex- 
periences which had so often been their own; to find a 
blue line of soldiery between them and their hunting 
grounds, ready to drive them "farther on" at point of 
gleaming bayonets. There was no city in Alaska of the 
beauty and magnitude of the one mirrored in the clouds 
and no one had been able to identify it. 

Ishmael explained the phenomenon as best he could, 
by telling them that objects 10,000 miles distant might 
be transported in reflection as well as those in the imme- 
diate vicinity. The Indians, gifted in the lore of nature far 
beyond our comprehension, finally accepted his hypothesis 
and resumed their former confidence. 

The years went by, and in the latter part of May, 
1889, our family party set out for an extended trip along 
the palisaded Columbia, and up the blue Pacific into 

99 



Alaska; Ishmael, of course, accompanying us. One after- 
noon in early June, as we were riding slowly along over 
the foothills to inspect a rumored Eldorado, we observed 
that a heavy mist was lifting like a silver veil from the 
scarred face of the great glacier and moving slowly up 
toward the perfect sky. Suddenly a ray of light, brilliant 
and scintillating as the wand of some fabled geni, swept 
over it and left a wonderful mirage in the air. A city 
divided by a river and built with palaces, cathedrals, great 
public squares and gardens was photographed upon the 
clouds, presenting to our astonished gaze the streets, 
the architectural beauty, the very life of the strange 
metropolis in exact verisimilitude. 
Ishmael was walking on a little 
in advance of us, one arm thrown 
over the neck of his burro and the 
other holding the folds of the gay 
Navajo blanket that hung like the 
mantle of a Roman senator over 
his shoulder. His head was bowed 
in thought and he did not share 
the illusion until attracted by our 
noisy delight. At a sign from one 
of us he lifted his eyes. For a 





moment he wavered as though 
in a dream, and then a light, 
vivid as the transforming scepter in 
the sky, flashed over his face. He gave a strong shout, 
ringing and exultant. 

"St. Petersburg!" he cried. "St. Petersburg, my love! 
I could not go back to you but you have come to me." 

He stretched his arms toward the vision in the clouds 
and murmured low, inarticulate words of joy and tender- 
ness, his face working with intense emotion. He turned 
to my father: 

"I am not Ishmael, but John," he said. "Behold a 
new apocalypse — St. Petersburg! St. Petersburg!" 

He beat his hands against his breast as if to still the 
heart leaping against its prison walls, and, turning, ran a 
few steps in the direction of the fast vanishing 
towers and cathedrals above the glacier heights; 
then, with uplifted arms, fell face downward 
upon the mountain path as he had fallen ^ 
upon the floor of our little room so many f 

years before. 

We bent over him frantic with grief 
as father laid his hand upon his heart 




and pulse and faltered: "He is dead." 

"Who was he?" we cried. "Tell us because we 
loved him; tell us his name!" 

Father raised the splendid head up to his breast 
and his manly tears fell fast as he passed a caressing 
hand over the furrow of the bullet in the wide white 
brow. 

"He was a Russian and an exile," he said at last. 
"But his secret we will leave with him in the strong 
fortress of these northern hills, beneath the phantom of 
the city for whose sake he gave his all." 










IF TAM O'SHANTER ^D HAD A WHEEL. 

J- 
If Tarn O'Shanter 'd had a wheel 

The witches might hae sought him 
Fra bosky glen to rinnin' burn 

But ne'er, ne'er caught him. 

But I — by far a soberer man — 

While speedin' down the highway, 

Took fright at a wee canny thing 
Wha whirled fra oot the byway. 

Fu' plain she bore th' witches' sign: 
Cleft chin a-set wi' laughter; 

An' Tam's ain bonnet on her head 
Made my puir brain th' dafter. 

Sae fast she sped alang th' way 

I felt that she was winnin'. 
"I'm caught," I cried, but on she went 

An' would na stop her rinnin'. 

"I yield the race!" I cried, but she 

Looked round fra o'er her plaiddie 

Wi' blue eyes wide an' coolly said: 
"Wha's racin' wi you, laddie?" 



TEMPEST. 

J' 
Lead me, Father, for the way grows steep; 

The briers catch my garments, and my feet 
Are torn by rocks that hide beneath the sand; 

Hold fast my hand! 

I cannot walk alone: The storm in might 

Bursts round my path and fills me with affright; 

I feel the trembling of the earthquake shock — 
Be Thou my rock ! 

I see thy face, my Saviour, through the night, 
And lift my shaken soul to Thine own sight; 

And thus abide till Thou the storm shall still; 
And fear no ill. 




i) THE QUEST OF GUDRUN. 

They had been betrothed when 
ir!ll>l Gudrun was 17 and Olaf had reached 
! the age of 21. Betrothed solemnly 
r " with the blessing of the minister; and 

Gudrun had worn on her smooth, yellow braids the mar- 
riage crown that her mother and hers had worn before 
her, for engagements in Norway are not lightly given or 
kept, and the betrothal ceremonies are second only to the 
wedding in importance and pomp. 

Olaf was a splendid specimen of the Northman; a 
type of the vikings of song and story; yellow-haired and 
of kingly stature. 

The neighbors had frowned and murmured a little 
when his parents had given him his name as they held 
him at the baptismal fount in the old gray-stone church. 
"It is a king's name," they said, "and the keeper of 
flocks has no right to it !" But the holy water was already 
on the white brow of the child, and old Peter's boy was 
called Olaf instead of Peter's son. 

The years went by; and as Olaf grew to manhood a 
little girl sprang up like a flower in the household of the 

105 



good minister. Gudrun he called her; forgetting the saga 
which made Olaf, the fierce Christian king, the suitor for 
that hapless lady's hand. The boy had a fishing boat 
and was much of the time away at sea; but his towns- 
people whispered of wild tales they had heard of him; 
and shook their heads over the news of his adventures, 
which were carried back to the village from the seaports. 

But there came a day when Olaf stood like a sun- 
god at the gate of the garden where Gudrun was queen 
rose; and then the story began. 

A few weeks of happiness followed the betrothal, and 
then the young man determined to try his fortune in the 
new world. He was to leave on the next ship, and, ar- 
riving in New York, would make his way at once across 
the mighty country to California or Washington, where 
fortune waited every strong and willing 
hand. Together the young people followed 
the curious maps and read of the wonder- 
land beyond the ocean, and Gudrun's heart 
was as full of courage and enthusiasm as 
her lover's own. 

She would wait at home and spin the 
fine linen and soft wool for their garments^ 

io6 




and household needs, and when he had niade a little 
home for her she would not be afraid to cross the seas 
to him. 

At first letters came rich in description and hope, 
and Gudrun sang and beat with her slippered foot to the 
music of voice and spinning wheel on the sanded floor. 
Then the messages were less frequent, and finally ceased 
altogether. 

The neighbors, whose faith in the young man had 
been fanned into life by his love for the minister's 
daughter, began shaking their heads again. But the girl, 
true and sound to the heart as the young pines in her 
native forests, never doubted one moment. Six months, 
a year, two years went by. The old minister died, and 
the daughter put a white cross at the head of the new 
mound in the country churchyard; then quietly made her 
preparations and sailed on the very next steamer of the 
North German Lloyds line that left the port. 

With Olaf's letters for her guide, she followed the 
way he had gone across the continent and up into 
Washington. 

It was midday when she reached a little northern 

station, which was the last postoffice address Olaf had 

107 




given her. The postmaster was a Nor- 
wegian, and he loolced at her a little 
strangely when she inquired how she 
could reach the hut in the woods that 
he had described to her. 

"Yes, he is there," he admitted 
reluctantly; "but the path is wild and 
dangerous. No, there is no guide and 
the horses can not get through. Wait, I will call my 
wife." 

A fair-haired woman came out of the house and 
urged its hospitality upon the young stranger, but she 
would not wait. The man drew a rough diagram on a 
paper and gave it to the girl. 

"Follow the path up the mountain as far as the 
trees are blazed," he said, "then turn to the left and 
watch for the bushes with broken twigs." 

The woman looked at the girl earnestly. "God be 
with you," she said simply, "and remember the same 
path leads back to this door." 

Gudrun stepped swiftly along over the heavy, damp 
sod and soon the forest closed around her. Even the 
great wooded stretches of her own land had nothing so 




vast and impenetrable. The trees stood with 

roots and branches interloci^ing, and mighty 

trunks barred the way, while only a faint 

g glimmer of light fell through the living green 

^^''' above her. 

The stillness was deeper and more awful 
than silence. Not a bird note or chirp of 
insect, or flutter of a dry leaf broke the hush of that 
solitude. Only her heartbeats sounded like the trample 
of horses almost upon her. Fear gripped her throat and 
smothered her; she thought of the wild creatures that 
would creep out of those shadows at night. 

"Olaf! Olaf!" she screamed in terror. But her 
words fell back in a score of echoes upon her. Moss, 
gray as her father's hair, looped from the trees and held 
her, but still she hurried onward. Suddenly a chicken 
ran out of the bushes in front with a shrill note of fright. 
She clapped her hands and laughed hysterically. Here 
at last was life and domesticity! She could hardly move 
for trembling. 

A little beyond was an opening and there was a 
hut with smoke creeping lazily from its old chimney. She 
rushed to the open doorway. 

log 



"Olaf!" The glad cry was left unuttered on her 
lips. The man she had crossed the seas to meet was 
there; but with him was a strange, dark woman, with 
straight black hair and flashing eyes. A coarse red 
blanket hung about her shoulders and in its folds she 
carried a child, fair of face and with Saxon features. 

The girl crouched in the shadows and saw Olaf take 
the child from its mother's arms and sing to him the 
Norseman's lullaby. Then she ran back to the shelter 
of the woods, blindly retracing her steps through the 
forest, and to the cottage at the station. 

The fair-haired woman was at the door to meet her. 

"I knew you would come, poor lamb," she said, in 
the dear home language. "Come in, now, and rest." 

She led the fainting girl into a neat little room and 
untied her shoes, as a mother might have done, giving 
her food and soothing her with tact- 
ful silence. By and by the good man 
came in and held a lighted candle 
before her in the quaint Norse custom, ij 

"Blow out the light, maiden," '"^^^^^ 
he said, "with a prayer. Your trouble "^ 
will go with it." "f\'" 




She did as he requested and in a few moments sank 
into a sweet sleep. The woman looked into her peace- 
ful face and smiled gently. 

"'Twas the best cure, husband," she said, "it is well 
that we let her go." 

This is the life story that Gudrun herself told me a 
day or so ago, and while she was speaking a black-haired 
boy came up and caught her with fierce affection in his 
arms. 

"This is Olaf's son" she said. "Olaf and his Indian 
wife both died and there was no one to care for the little 
one. So, after all, you see" (with a smile of tenderest 
radiance), "it is well that Gudrun came." 







SONNET. 

Love blossoms on the heights. The edelweiss 
Should be its emblem rather than the rose. 
Above the line of the eternal snows 

It blooms, component flame and dew and ice. 

Purer than pearls, and rarer than the spice 

The ships of Ophir brought the Holy Land, 
The treasure waits the daring climber's hand, 

And yields its guerdon for his sacrifice. 

But 'broidering the garments of the hills, 

Wild, tangled, riotous and wild' ring, grow 

Sweet counterfeits that he may take who wills; 

Deep tropic bloom.s that through dusk twilights glow: 
And many linger in their lang'rous thrall 
Who never clasp the perfect flow'r at all. 



Wis 















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